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0 pointslkbm9y ago0 comments

The integrated circuit came out of Apollo[1], and apparently the cellphone camera came from NASA's work[2]. Not sure about the rest. We wouldn't have GPS, obviously.

You can credit a lot of stuff to the space program if you want, since all tech is built on other tech, and NASA was a big source of R&D in the 1950s onward.

[1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/apollo-ic.html [2] http://www.space.com/10635-space-spinoff-technology-cellphon...

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patrickk9y ago

To continue this train of thought, the entire reason Silicon Valley exists in the first place is because of Department of Defense spending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo (aka Big Government spending.)

The foundations of the web were laid down by Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN, a huge, expensive physics research organisation funded by European governments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Computer_science

nickik9y ago

While this is true, its also not the point. Russia and other places have and had tons of programs like it, but they don't have a Silicon Valley.

Government is usually always involved in nearly everything, because they are spending almost 50% of the GDP, and even 100 years ago they spent 20% or so. Other countries its sometimes as high as 70%.

Saying that computers, the web, satellites would not exist without government is a pretty absurd claim. The idea of satellites, networks and all this stuff was around and would have happened. The US was commercially successful, actually uniquely successful in almost all of world history, during a period when federal government spent only about 2% of GDP. During this time tons of innovation, the most in the world, came out of the US.

Tesla is successful not because of government handouts anymore then many other large companies. It of course helps them, just like with any other large company. Elon would be a idiot if he didn't advocate for tax breaks, you have to play the politics game.

sqeaky9y ago

Governments can't innovate but can absorb a ton of risk (like waging war levels of risk), Businesses can innovate but really cannot take large risk.

When a government absorbs risks by spending on research it can have businesses do the work on the promise the benefit is shared. Christopher Columbus finding America and the companies that launched Apollo both worked this way. It seems to work well in practice.

It is hard to say that we would definitely be this far without Government spending. It is reasonable to make a case we could never leave the planet without an Apollo like initiative. How would the space industry would have gotten started purely in the private sector? Its not like they could have contracted the launches out, there were no launch companies. I don't hold this extreme view but I can see how it could be held.

To go to the most extreme view I can see possible: It is entirely possible that without that spending humanity wouldn't have GPS. It is also possible a foreign power that was hostile could have GPS and use it in war against us. With a few tech changes like that in the worst of these scenarios there could be enough tech lopsided-ness that MAD never worked and one side could have ruined the planet with nukes during the cold war.

nandemo9y ago

Eh, so IC was invented and commercialized before Apollo, but Apollo was instrumental in accelerating the development of ICs. That's a far cry from "we wouldn't have cell phones without NASA"...

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